Channel 9 - Entries tagged with Game DevelopmentMicrosofthttp://mschnlnine.vo.llnwd.net/d1/Dev/App_Themes/C9/images/feedimage.pngChannel 9 - Entries tagged with Game Developmenthttps://channel9.msdn.com/Tags/game+development
Channel 9 keeps you up to date with the latest news and behind the scenes info from Microsoft that developers love to keep up with. From LINQ to SilverLight – Watch videos and hear about all the cool technologies coming and the people behind them.https://channel9.msdn.com/Tags/game+development
enTue, 03 Mar 2015 23:09:24 GMTTue, 03 Mar 2015 23:09:24 GMTRev9108525Episode 4: Illyriad Games' James Niesewand, CEO and FounderLevel Up is a show devoted to game development. Each show will recap current news and events in gaming, deep dive with a game industry insider, and cover tips for programming or finding resources to help you with game construction. We would love to hear from you with feedback or suggestions for what you would like to see on the show, or just tell us about the projects you are working on. Write us at LevelUp@microsoft.com

]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Level-Up/Episode-3-Illyriad-Games-James-Niesewand-CEO-and-FounderLevel Up is a show devoted to game development. Each show will recap current news and events in gaming, deep dive with a game industry insider, and cover tips for programming or finding resources to help you with game construction. We would love to hear from you with feedback or suggestions for what you would like to see on the show, or just tell us about the projects you are working on. Write us at LevelUp@microsoft.com News [00:29] 10 quotes every game developer should remember [Alex Wawro][00:56] How game design has changed in the 15 years since Havok's debut [Alex Wawro][01:33] Xbox at Game Developers Conference 2015Interview - [02:13] James Niesewand, CEO and Founder of Illyriad Games Illyriad, http://www.illyriad.co.uk/Age of Ascent, http://www.ageofascent.comTips and Tricks [15:51] Make A Game With No Experience: Tom Francis begins Game Maker tutorials [Phill Cameron][16:15] Taking your Game Dev skills to the next level[16:37] Indie Tools: Free, open source Godot Engine seeks to compete with big names, http://www.godotengine.org/wp/Follow @CH9 Follow @soumow Follow @gduncan411 1057https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Level-Up/Episode-3-Illyriad-Games-James-Niesewand-CEO-and-Founder
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 16:00:00 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Level-Up/Episode-3-Illyriad-Games-James-Niesewand-CEO-and-FounderGreg Duncan, SoumowGreg Duncan, Soumow0https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Level-Up/Episode-3-Illyriad-Games-James-Niesewand-CEO-and-Founder/RSSGame DesignGame DevelopmentGDCGodot EngineBeen a long time since I've done any game dev posts, let alone one on a game engine.

Today we're highlighting an engine that you might not have heard of, but looks very interesting and one you can build some amazing games with...

The Godot Engine was originally an in-house tool developed by OKAM Studio for their commercial projects, but they released it free and open source under the MIT License in February of last year. They've kept fairly quiet about it until recently, growing their community by word of mouth while working on improving it, and released a stable 1.0 build last month.

...

The Godot Engine has editors available for Windows, Linux, and OSX. It can be used to create both 2D and 3D games, though whereas an engine like Unity accomplishes 2D using a 3D environment, Godot has separate 2D and 3D base engines. Godot supports a Python-based scripting language designed especially for games and allows the engine itself to be extended using C++. Other features include animation tools and built-in debugging.

Compiling from Source

]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/Godot-EngineBeen a long time since I've done any game dev posts, let alone one on a game engine. Today we're highlighting an engine that you might not have heard of, but looks very interesting and one you can build some amazing games with... Indie Tools: Free, open source Godot Engine seeks to compete with big namesThe Godot Engine was originally an in-house tool developed by OKAM Studio for their commercial projects, but they released it free and open source under the MIT License in February of last year. They've kept fairly quiet about it until recently, growing their community by word of mouth while working on improving it, and released a stable 1.0 build last month. ... The Godot Engine has editors available for Windows, Linux, and OSX. It can be used to create both 2D and 3D games, though whereas an engine like Unity accomplishes 2D using a 3D environment, Godot has separate 2D and 3D base engines. Godot supports a Python-based scripting language designed especially for games and allows the engine itself to be extended using C&#43;&#43;. Other features include animation tools and built-in debugging. Godot Engine Godot is an advanced, feature packed, multi-platform 2D and 3D game engine. It provides a huge set of common tools, so you can just focus on making your game without reinventing the wheel. LicenseGodot is is completely Free and Open Source under the very permissive MIT License. No strings attached, no royalties, nothing. Your game is yours, down to the last line of engine code. Use Your Eyes:Work inside a simple, yet flexible and feature rich editor, with tools popping up to aid you when needed. Uncluttered UI, where most tools are context-sensitive.Huge amount of tools to aid you and your team in content creation.Editor designed not only for programmers, but for artists,animators, level designers, graphic designers, game designers, etc.Built-In documentation browser and code editor to avoid distractions. Multi-Platform Editor:Develop games using your favorite https://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/Godot-Engine
Wed, 21 Jan 2015 14:00:00 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/Godot-EngineGreg DuncanGreg Duncan0https://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/Godot-Engine/RSSCoding4FunGame DevelopmentEpisode 3: Magma Mobile's Nicolas Sorel, CEO and FounderLevel Up is a show devoted to game development. Each show will recap current news and events in gaming, deep dive with a game industry insider, and cover tips for programming or finding resources to help you with game construction. We would love to hear from you with feedback or suggestions for what you would like to see on the show, or just tell us about the projects you are working on. Write us at LevelUp@microsoft.com

]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Level-Up/Episode-3-Magma-Mobiles-Nicolas-Sorel-CEO-and-FounderLevel Up is a show devoted to game development. Each show will recap current news and events in gaming, deep dive with a game industry insider, and cover tips for programming or finding resources to help you with game construction. We would love to hear from you with feedback or suggestions for what you would like to see on the show, or just tell us about the projects you are working on. Write us at LevelUp@microsoft.com News [00:32] 7 truths about indie game development [Sarah Woodrow][01:13] Indie while Expecting: The story of Glyph Quest [Kristyna Paskova]Interview - [01:46] Nicolas Sorel, CEO and Founder of Magma Mobile [15:59] Ice Cream ✔[16:42] Bowling XmasOther Magma Mobile Windows Phone apps and gamesTips and Tricks [17:32] Creating A Press Kit For Your Indie Game [Nick Mudry][18:11] All hail the old and the new–The MonoGame content builder tool [Simon Jackson][18:31] CocosSharp, https://github.com/mono/CocosSharp/wiki, https://github.com/mono/CocosSharp/wiki/Key-Differences, https://github.com/mono/cocos-sharp-samples, https://github.com/mono/cocos-sharp-samples/blob/master/GoneBananas/Walkthrough.mdFollow @CH9 Follow @soumow Follow @gduncan411 1179https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Level-Up/Episode-3-Magma-Mobiles-Nicolas-Sorel-CEO-and-Founder
Tue, 20 Jan 2015 16:00:00 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Level-Up/Episode-3-Magma-Mobiles-Nicolas-Sorel-CEO-and-FounderGreg Duncan, Golnaz, Kaitlin McKinnon, SoumowGreg Duncan, Golnaz, Kaitlin McKinnon, Soumow0https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Level-Up/Episode-3-Magma-Mobiles-Nicolas-Sorel-CEO-and-Founder/RSSGame DesignMonoWindows PhoneGame DevelopmentMonoGame, F# and Santa!Yeah, I know, Christmas is over and we've all put, or are putting, the decorations away, but that doesn't mean we can't prep for next year! Or enjoy a little F#, MonoGame development...

Tim Jones has shared a great tutorial on he created a holiday themed game, using F# and MonoGame. This is a long piece that does a great job of walking you through the entire process...

For the last couple of months, I’ve been addicted to Make Them Jump, an awesome game for iOS (and Android). When Sergey Tihon asked for volunteers for the F# Advent Calendar, I knew I wanted to do something related to games, and I decided it would be fun to make a Santa-themed clone of Make Them Jump. Unlike some of the other #fsadvent entries, the code for this game is not particularly clever or advanced; but the end result is, hopefully, enjoyable.

Before we go any further, I recommend that you download the finished game from GitHub (download “MakeSantaJump.Windows.zip” to get the pre-built binaries) and try it out yourself. There are 5 difficulty levels; on the menu screen, press the number key corresponding to the difficulty. Then press the key in the top-left corner of each panel (Space, F, etc.), to make the corresponding Santa jump. Try to get as high a score as possible! ...

If you manage to score more than 0 on the highest difficulty level, you’re doing great ;) In keeping with the original, I’ve pitched the difficulty somewhere between “fiendish” and “nightmarish”.

Okay - now that you’ve (hopefully) played the game, you’ve got a good idea of what we’re going to build. We’re going to write the game from scratch, step by step, using MonoGame. Or put another way, we’re going to write the game from scratch, using only A HIGH LEVEL LIBRARY THAT DOES BASICALLY EVERYTHING FOR US.

If you haven’t worked with F# much or at all before - no problem. I’ll include all of the necessary code here, and we’ll work our way right from the beginning to the end.

Our whole game will be only 300-ish lines of F# source code. Let’s get started!

File > New > Project

I’ve made the assumption, for the purposes of this tutorial, that you’re using Windows. As I mention at the end of this post, the game should work without too many modifications on Mac and Linux, but for now, it will be easiest to follow along if you’re on Windows.

I’m also assuming, if you’re reading this, that you already have Visual Studio installed. If not, grab the free Visual Studio Community 2013 and install it.

...

Conclusion

That’s it! If you’ve made it this far, well done! You’ve made a complete 2D endless runner game, in ~300 lines of F# code. Okay, there’s a lot that could be added to it - sound, perhaps a parallax background, nicer looking menus - but it’s playable as it is, and, I hope you agree, quite fun!

I ran out of time to run the game on a Mac prior to posting this, but I hope to do that soon, and then write a follow-up post. I expect that it will work without too many changes on both Mac and Linux, which would be pretty cool. It should even work on iOS and Android, although you’d have to make some adjustments - you don’t want to use keyboard input on mobile devices :)

Let me know in the comments if you have any feedback on the content or style of this tutorial. I’ve enjoyed putting it together - any excuse to make a game!

(As I was preparing this game and blog post, a somewhat similar game, Rudolph Runner, appeared on Hacker News. Rudolph Runner is a lot prettier than my game, but I think Make Santa Jump has the edge when it comes to difficulty. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing���)

Shout out to Casey for making it available for free, and for licencing it under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence.

Note: If when you do the first clone and build, the Nuget packages are restored but the compile still doesn't finish without errors (i.e. the References seem to still be empty), exit Visual Studio and start it and load the Solution (or unload/reload the Solution).

]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/MonoGame-F-and-SantaYeah, I know, Christmas is over and we've all put, or are putting, the decorations away, but that doesn't mean we can't prep for next year! Or enjoy a little F#, MonoGame development... Tim Jones has shared a great tutorial on he created a holiday themed game, using F# and MonoGame. This is a long piece that does a great job of walking you through the entire process... Make Santa Jump - Making an endless runner game in F# using MonoGame For the last couple of months, I’ve been addicted to Make Them Jump, an awesome game for iOS (and Android). When Sergey Tihon asked for volunteers for the F# Advent Calendar, I knew I wanted to do something related to games, and I decided it would be fun to make a Santa-themed clone of Make Them Jump. Unlike some of the other #fsadvent entries, the code for this game is not particularly clever or advanced; but the end result is, hopefully, enjoyable. Before we go any further, I recommend that you download the finished game from GitHub (download “MakeSantaJump.Windows.zip” to get the pre-built binaries) and try it out yourself. There are 5 difficulty levels; on the menu screen, press the number key corresponding to the difficulty. Then press the key in the top-left corner of each panel (Space, F, etc.), to make the corresponding Santa jump. Try to get as high a score as possible! ... If you manage to score more than 0 on the highest difficulty level, you’re doing great ;) In keeping with the original, I’ve pitched the difficulty somewhere between “fiendish” and “nightmarish”. Okay - now that you’ve (hopefully) played the game, you’ve got a good idea of what we’re going to build. We’re going to write the game from scratch, step by step, using MonoGame. Or put another way, we’re going to write the game from scratch, using only A HIGH LEVEL LIBRARY THAT DOES BASICALLY EVERYTHING FOR US. If you haven’t worked with F# much or at all before - no problem. I’ll include all of the necessary code here, and we’ll work our way right from the beghttps://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/MonoGame-F-and-Santa
Wed, 07 Jan 2015 14:00:00 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/MonoGame-F-and-SantaGreg DuncanGreg Duncan1https://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/MonoGame-F-and-Santa/RSSCoding4FunF#MonoGame DevelopmentHolidaychristmasEpisode 2: Habitat’s Charles Cox, Founder of 4gencyLevel Up is a show devoted to game development. Each show will recap current news and events in gaming, deep dive with a game industry insider, and cover tips for programming or finding resources to help you with game construction. We would love to hear from you with feedback or suggestions for what you would like to see on the show, or just tell us about the projects you are working on. Write us at LevelUp@microsoft.com

]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Level-Up/Episode-2-Habitats-Charles-Cox-Founder-of-4gencyLevel Up is a show devoted to game development. Each show will recap current news and events in gaming, deep dive with a game industry insider, and cover tips for programming or finding resources to help you with game construction. We would love to hear from you with feedback or suggestions for what you would like to see on the show, or just tell us about the projects you are working on. Write us at LevelUp@microsoft.com News [00:31] Visual Studio 2015 Preview Tools for Unity, http://unityvs.com/[01:15] Gamepad API, Wave Audio, Ecmascript 6 features added to latest IE 11 update [David Voyles][02:04] Visual Studio Community 2013: The New Essential for Your Open Source Toolbox [Eric Mitt], Introducing Visual Studio Community 2013 [Scott Hanselman, Dmitry Lyalin], Visual Studio Community 2013Interview [03:12] - Charles Cox, 4gency CEO [05:38] HabitatTips and Tricks [12:16] Introduction to WebGL 3D with HTML5 and Babylon.js [​David Catuhe, David Rousset], Understanding collisions &amp; physics by building a cool WebGL Babylon.js demo with Oimo.js [David Rousset][12:44] Top 5 Intro to Unity Learning Resources [Nathalie], Pluralsight Introduction to Game Development with Unity, Digital Tutors, Unity Stealth tutorialFollow @CH9 Follow @soumow Follow @gduncan411 813https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Level-Up/Episode-2-Habitats-Charles-Cox-Founder-of-4gency
Wed, 10 Dec 2014 14:57:08 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Level-Up/Episode-2-Habitats-Charles-Cox-Founder-of-4gencyGreg Duncan, Golnaz, Kaitlin McKinnon, SoumowGreg Duncan, Golnaz, Kaitlin McKinnon, Soumow0https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Level-Up/Episode-2-Habitats-Charles-Cox-Founder-of-4gency/RSSUnityGame Developmentvisual stuidoBabylonJS, Unity2D, SparkCore and creating your own DDR MatToday's project from Stacey Mulcahy (aka @bitchwhocodes) is one that could easily be a Hardware Friday post, yet due to its game hook I'm going to highlight it today... :)

Did I have you at DDR? Dance Dance Revolution is one of those games that has its very loyal audience, with hours wasted in local arcades breaking records and myths about rhythm and grace simultaneously. Search Youtube for DDR, and it will take you down the most amazing internet rabbit hole, across generations, and across countries and oceans.

A DDR style mat can be easily made by making a series of pressure sensors and some LEDs. Pressure on the sensor can be detected by a microprocessor such as an Arduino, SparkCore, Galielo, and the leds can be used to give visual cues of the sequence or light up when its been stepped on.

You can go and fork out the cash for some pressure sensors which typically range in price from 7- 12 bucks. These sensors will give you a higher level of fidelity and are better for applications that require more fidelity in weight for example. We are going to make our own pressure sensors from Velostat which is a pressure-sensitive conductive material. If you add a bit of conductive thread to it, you can capture the analog values to determine pressure, and boom – you got your own pressure sensors perfect for a DDR mat, a whoopie cushion, even a smart coaster.

Making a Pressure Sensor from Velostat and Conductive Thread

This is the easiest part of this project by far. You will need the following materials to create your own pressure sensor:

...

Reading the Analog Value

You will need to calibrate the sensor. This often means reading the values and determining the value range. For my sensor, with no pressure, I was reading about 120 and up. For a full press, it was somewhere under 20. To capture an analog pin, you will need to read it’s value using the analogRead method in most microcontrollers.

...

Using the Data From the REST API for the SparkCore

If you are using Arduino, you will need to think about how you can access that data elsewhere or share it. With an Arduino Mega, you could use low level sockets for example. You could store the data in a database. You could use web sockets, or something like Spacebrew with Processing.

Using the Data in BabylonJS

I took one of the basic particle examples from BabylonJS, and I showed how to capture the data from the SparkCore API to incorporate it. If you press the sensor, you’ll start the particle system. Imagine making a few sensors where if you walked in difference places, you’d trigger explosions ( land mines) for example. Again, I just captured and polled the REST API on a regular interval using jQuery:

]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/BabylonJS-Unity2D-SparkCore-and-creating-your-own-DDR-MatToday's project from Stacey Mulcahy (aka @bitchwhocodes) is one that could easily be a Hardware Friday post, yet due to its game hook I'm going to highlight it today... :) DIY – Make Your Own DDR Mat on the Cheap for Your Unity2D GameDid I have you at DDR? Dance Dance Revolution is one of those games that has its very loyal audience, with hours wasted in local arcades breaking records and myths about rhythm and grace simultaneously. Search Youtube for DDR, and it will take you down the most amazing internet rabbit hole, across generations, and across countries and oceans. A DDR style mat can be easily made by making a series of pressure sensors and some LEDs. Pressure on the sensor can be detected by a microprocessor such as an Arduino, SparkCore, Galielo, and the leds can be used to give visual cues of the sequence or light up when its been stepped on. You can go and fork out the cash for some pressure sensors which typically range in price from 7- 12 bucks. These sensors will give you a higher level of fidelity and are better for applications that require more fidelity in weight for example. We are going to make our own pressure sensors from Velostat which is a pressure-sensitive conductive material. If you add a bit of conductive thread to it, you can capture the analog values to determine pressure, and boom – you got your own pressure sensors perfect for a DDR mat, a whoopie cushion, even a smart coaster. Making a Pressure Sensor from Velostat and Conductive ThreadThis is the easiest part of this project by far. You will need the following materials to create your own pressure sensor: ... Reading the Analog ValueYou will need to calibrate the sensor. This often means reading the values and determining the value range. For my sensor, with no pressure, I was reading about 120 and up. For a full press, it was somewhere under 20. To capture an analog pin, you will need to read it’s value using the analogRead method in most microcontrollers. ... Using the Data Frohttps://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/BabylonJS-Unity2D-SparkCore-and-creating-your-own-DDR-Mat
Wed, 10 Dec 2014 14:00:00 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/BabylonJS-Unity2D-SparkCore-and-creating-your-own-DDR-MatGreg DuncanGreg Duncan0https://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/BabylonJS-Unity2D-SparkCore-and-creating-your-own-DDR-Mat/RSSCoding4FunJavaScriptGame DevelopmentAge of Ascent is a massively multiplayer online (MMO) powered by Microsoft Azure.Age of Ascent is a massively multiplayer online (MMO) epic space game from Illyriad Games, powered by Microsoft Azure. An important and distinctive aspect of the game, which sets it apart from others of its genre, is its ability to have tens of thousands of players in a single concurrent world, engaged in huge battles and exploration. The underlying engine that powers it needs to be able to deliver this degree of massive scale, as and when needed, without any advance notice from the game community.

There's also a blog by John Shewchuk that also goes into more detail about how Age of Ascent has progressed over time.

]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Age-of-Ascent-is-a-massively-multiplayer-online-MMO-powered-by-Microsoft-AzureAge of Ascent is a massively multiplayer online (MMO) epic space game from Illyriad Games, powered by Microsoft Azure. An important and distinctive aspect of the game, which sets it apart from others of its genre, is its ability to have tens of thousands of players in a single concurrent world, engaged in huge battles and exploration. The underlying engine that powers it needs to be able to deliver this degree of massive scale, as and when needed, without any advance notice from the game community. For more details on Age of Ascent see this detailed whitepaper on the game, which is available on the MSDN website, There's also a blog by John Shewchuk that also goes into more detail about how Age of Ascent has progressed over time. 135https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Age-of-Ascent-is-a-massively-multiplayer-online-MMO-powered-by-Microsoft-Azure
Mon, 08 Dec 2014 23:12:12 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Age-of-Ascent-is-a-massively-multiplayer-online-MMO-powered-by-Microsoft-AzureLee StottLee Stott0https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Age-of-Ascent-is-a-massively-multiplayer-online-MMO-powered-by-Microsoft-Azure/RSSAzureAzure ServicesCloudGame DesignGame DevelopmentSOA Models & Best Practice for a Game with a Cloud BackendMicrosoft wants you to be a successful game developer. We want you to capitalise on the emerging market landscape with the models made possible by cloud

To help you get started we have developed the following models. These models help you understand what cloud is? what services are offered? How the cloud can help your game and studio.

Use the cloud infrastructure for more complex transactions such as validating user actions. 3D | 2D | Video

]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Getting-Started-with-Cloud-Services-to-backend-your-game-SOA-Models-and-best-practiceMicrosoft wants you to be a successful game developer. We want you to capitalise on the emerging market landscape with the models made possible by cloud To help you get started we have developed the following models. These models help you understand what cloud is? what services are offered? How the cloud can help your game and studio. Gaming Model 1 – Palabra Simple turn based game (demonstrates the architectural model and cloud services required to setup the service) Get started in the cloud with a simple turn-taking game. 3D | 2D | Video Gaming Model 2 Wordament Full cross platform game developed in Xamarin (demonstrates the architectural and cloud services required to setup the services) Set up your gaming infrastructure. Add a leaderboard that’s updated continually. 3D | 2D | Video Gaming 3 – Zoo Tycoon Friends Windows 8 and Windows Phone game built by Xbox Studios on a game franchise offers highly scalable services. Use the cloud infrastructure for more complex transactions such as validating user actions. 3D | 2D | Video https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Getting-Started-with-Cloud-Services-to-backend-your-game-SOA-Models-and-best-practice
Mon, 08 Dec 2014 15:59:39 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Getting-Started-with-Cloud-Services-to-backend-your-game-SOA-Models-and-best-practiceLee StottLee Stott0https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Getting-Started-with-Cloud-Services-to-backend-your-game-SOA-Models-and-best-practice/RSSAzureCloudCloud ArchitectureGame DesignGame DevelopmentDocumentary –The Making of Spectra for Xbox One“The way that Microsoft works with Indie developers is really quite unique and nice to see……Microsoft are going large with this whole startup thing, It's like the perfect storm of platforms, support, and people all in the right place at the right time. Genuinely we wouldn't be where we are without Microsoft " Louis Deane, CEO of Gateway Interactive

Watch the journey of Gateway interactive from Start-up to Microsoft Accelerator to Xbox One.

From new studio Gateway Interactive and Chipzel (The artist behind the Super Hexagon music) comes Spectra, a fast paced retro style racing game destined to get your heart pumping and test your skill like no other!

Spectra features 10 unique music tracks which are used to generate procedural levels, cross play between Xbox and Windows Phone is supported via cloud services allowing you to take the game on the go or experience it in Full HD on Xbox One.

Spectra features only one gamemode, you race against the beat on a procedurally generated track. Players must navigate around obsticles and collect points whilst trying to drive with the best style possible and stay on the road. The gameplay mechanic is simple but very addictive! The player must move from left to right with skill to avoid obstacles. The gameplay speed increases as the player progresses through the levels requiring more advanced skill. http://www.spectragame.com/

]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Documentary-The-Making-of-Spectra-for-Xbox-One“The way that Microsoft works with Indie developers is really quite unique and nice to see……Microsoft are going large with this whole startup thing, It's like the perfect storm of platforms, support, and people all in the right place at the right time. Genuinely we wouldn't be where we are without Microsoft &quot; Louis Deane, CEO of Gateway Interactive Watch the journey of Gateway interactive from Start-up to Microsoft Accelerator to Xbox One. From new studio Gateway Interactive and Chipzel (The artist behind the Super Hexagon music) comes Spectra, a fast paced retro style racing game destined to get your heart pumping and test your skill like no other! Spectra features 10 unique music tracks which are used to generate procedural levels, cross play between Xbox and Windows Phone is supported via cloud services allowing you to take the game on the go or experience it in Full HD on Xbox One. Spectra features only one gamemode, you race against the beat on a procedurally generated track. Players must navigate around obsticles and collect points whilst trying to drive with the best style possible and stay on the road. The gameplay mechanic is simple but very addictive! The player must move from left to right with skill to avoid obstacles. The gameplay speed increases as the player progresses through the levels requiring more advanced skill. http://www.spectragame.com/ 732https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Documentary-The-Making-of-Spectra-for-Xbox-One
Tue, 02 Dec 2014 20:45:41 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Documentary-The-Making-of-Spectra-for-Xbox-OneLee StottLee Stott2https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Documentary-The-Making-of-Spectra-for-Xbox-One/RSSAzureCloudGame DesignGamingGaming on Windows PhonesGame DevelopmentXbox OneDeveloper Story Will and Kavitha share their thoughts on Design, Development and Architecture of Cloud based gamesWill Frost, Senior Software Development Engineer, Microsoft Studios, Kavitha Mullapudi, Lead Services Tester, Microsoft Studios share their views on their experiences of shipping over 40 mobile games with backend services.

Key concerns covered include testing and auto scaling for more details of how they approached the technical solution see the Scalable cloud gaming architecture and engineering for mobile, social games using Azure video.

]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Developer-Story-Will-and-Kavitha-share-their-thoughts-on-Design-Development-and-Architecture-of-ClouWill Frost, Senior Software Development Engineer, Microsoft Studios, Kavitha Mullapudi, Lead Services Tester, Microsoft Studios share their views on their experiences of shipping over 40 mobile games with backend services. Key concerns covered include testing and auto scaling for more details of how they approached the technical solution see the Scalable cloud gaming architecture and engineering for mobile, social games using Azure video. 193https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Developer-Story-Will-and-Kavitha-share-their-thoughts-on-Design-Development-and-Architecture-of-Clou
Tue, 02 Dec 2014 20:28:10 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Developer-Story-Will-and-Kavitha-share-their-thoughts-on-Design-Development-and-Architecture-of-ClouLee StottLee Stott0https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Developer-Story-Will-and-Kavitha-share-their-thoughts-on-Design-Development-and-Architecture-of-Clou/RSSAzureCloud ArchitectureCloud ComputingCloud ServicesGamesGame DevelopmentScalable Cloud Gaming Architecture and Engineering for Mobile, Social Games Using AzureWill Frost, Senior Software Development Engineer, Microsoft Studios, Kavitha Mullapudi, Lead Services Tester, Microsoft Studios

In this talk, the speaker will share practical software engineering approaches for building a globally scalable cloud service for an original, multi-platform mobile / social game from Microsoft.

This presentation will detail approaches to simplifying and converging development between Unity and Azure, pros and cons of platform-as-a-service (PaaS) versus infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) architectures for games, testing, automation and scalability benefits and caveats and lessons learned from building a modern social game from scratch on Unity and Azure.

]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Scalable-Cloud-Gaming-Architecture-and-Engineering-for-Mobile-Social-Games-Using-AzureWill Frost, Senior Software Development Engineer, Microsoft Studios, Kavitha Mullapudi, Lead Services Tester, Microsoft StudiosIn this talk, the speaker will share practical software engineering approaches for building a globally scalable cloud service for an original, multi-platform mobile / social game from Microsoft. This presentation will detail approaches to simplifying and converging development between Unity and Azure, pros and cons of platform-as-a-service (PaaS) versus infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) architectures for games, testing, automation and scalability benefits and caveats and lessons learned from building a modern social game from scratch on Unity and Azure. 1718https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Scalable-Cloud-Gaming-Architecture-and-Engineering-for-Mobile-Social-Games-Using-Azure
Tue, 02 Dec 2014 20:20:12 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Scalable-Cloud-Gaming-Architecture-and-Engineering-for-Mobile-Social-Games-Using-AzureLee StottLee Stott0https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Scalable-Cloud-Gaming-Architecture-and-Engineering-for-Mobile-Social-Games-Using-Azure/RSSAzureAzure PlatformAzure ServicesCloudCloud ArchitectureCloud ComputingGame DevelopmentTitanFall – Hands off.. scale, demand & resources the power of Cloud computingHear from Xbox’s John Burno, Drew McCoy Producer, Respawn Entertainment and Vince Zampella CEO, Respawn Entertainment on how Titanfall is powered by Azure Cloud. ]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/TitanFall--Hands-off-scale-demand--resources-the-power-of-Cloud-computingHear from Xbox’s John Burno, Drew McCoy Producer, Respawn Entertainment and Vince Zampella CEO, Respawn Entertainment on how Titanfall is powered by Azure Cloud. 107https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/TitanFall--Hands-off-scale-demand--resources-the-power-of-Cloud-computing
Tue, 02 Dec 2014 20:01:03 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/TitanFall--Hands-off-scale-demand--resources-the-power-of-Cloud-computingLee StottLee Stott0https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/TitanFall--Hands-off-scale-demand--resources-the-power-of-Cloud-computing/RSSAzure PlatformCloudCloud ServicesGame DevelopmentXbox OneMoving from a Game Dev Startup Business to E3Hear from Louis Deane at Gateway Interactive on Gateway on his experiences of using cloud services within games and how Gateway Interactive went from a new Start-up game developer to E3 in a matter of months. ]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Moving-from-a-Game-Dev-Startup-Business-to-E3Hear from Louis Deane at Gateway Interactive on Gateway on his experiences of using cloud services within games and how Gateway Interactive went from a new Start-up game developer to E3 in a matter of months. 300https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Moving-from-a-Game-Dev-Startup-Business-to-E3
Tue, 02 Dec 2014 19:37:06 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Moving-from-a-Game-Dev-Startup-Business-to-E3Lee StottLee Stott0https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Moving-from-a-Game-Dev-Startup-Business-to-E3/RSSAzureCloudGamesGame DevelopmentEpisode 1: Project SparkLevel Up is a show devoted to game development. Each show will recap current news and events in gaming, deep dive with a game industry insider, and cover tips for programming or finding resources to help you with game construction. We would love to hear from you with feedback or suggestions for what you would like to see on the show, or just tell us about the projects you are working on. Write us at LevelUp@microsoft.com

]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Level-Up/Episode-1-Project-SparkLevel Up is a show devoted to game development. Each show will recap current news and events in gaming, deep dive with a game industry insider, and cover tips for programming or finding resources to help you with game construction. We would love to hear from you with feedback or suggestions for what you would like to see on the show, or just tell us about the projects you are working on. Write us at LevelUp@microsoft.com News [00:36] Use C# to script in Unreal Engine 4 now, courtesy of Xamarin [Dave Voyles], Mono for Unreal Engine [Miguel de Icaza][00:56] The OMNI Engine v1 Released (C# in T3D) [Vince Gee], www.omniengine.net[01:22] Indie Dev &amp; Day Job, Making it work – Building Quest of Dungeons [David Amador][01:45] Mastering Unity 2D 2nd Edition and competition results! [Simon &quot;Darkside&quot; Jackson]Interview - Jason Major on Project Spark, [02:11] Project SparkWhat will You Create? Project Spark Launches Online and at RetailProject Spark launches for Windows 8.1 and Xbox One [Brandon LeBlanc]Creating Games with Project Spark [Stephen Howell]Tips and Tricks [11:55] Create a Fruit Ninja Inspired Game with Unity[12:11] Cloud Gaming Architecture–A walkthrough of how to get started [Lee Stott][12:25] GAMING : THE BEST FREE ART AND GRAPHICS DESIGN TOOLS [Vidyasagar Machupalli][12:41] FREE Game Templates in Construct 2 [Diego Lizarazo], Developing Games with Construct 2 [James Quick, Shahed Chowdhuri]Follow @CH9 Follow @soumow Follow @gduncan411 815https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Level-Up/Episode-1-Project-Spark
Tue, 25 Nov 2014 18:00:00 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Level-Up/Episode-1-Project-SparkGreg Duncan, Golnaz, Kaitlin McKinnon, SoumowGreg Duncan, Golnaz, Kaitlin McKinnon, Soumow12https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Level-Up/Episode-1-Project-Spark/RSSDevelopmentGame DevelopmentProject SparkOGRE you ready to create Universal projects?Michael H.C. Cummings is back with an outstanding getting started guide on creating Universal apps/games with OGRE. He walks you through every step, from getting the OGRE source, building it, creating the Universal projects to the final build and run...

OGRE (Object-Oriented Graphics Rendering Engine) is a scene-oriented, flexible 3D engine written in C++ designed to make it easier and more intuitive for developers to produce applications utilizing hardware-accelerated 3D graphics. The class library abstracts all the details of using the underlying system libraries like Direct3D and OpenGL and provides an interface based on world objects and other intuitive classes. In recent releases, OGRE has added support for Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1. Since the support is fairly new, getting OGRE ready for building games for these platforms can be a little tricksy, this guide is intended to reduce the friction of getting a game started using OGRE.

By following this guide, which is very similar to another post I did on OGRE, you will be able to start building your next game targeting Windows and Windows Phone 8.1 devices. The best method for using OGRE is to build it from source and then build your projects on top of that build. A primary benefit of compiling from source is that you can keep updated with the latest bug fixes. This also allows you to step into the OGRE source while debugging, if you need to, in order to solve the trickier rendering problems.

Getting Ready

As this guide is targeting Windows and Windows Phone 8.1, you’ll need to have a working installation of Windows 8.1 and Visual Studio 2013. If you are using the Express editions of Visual Studio, make sure you are using the Visual Studio Express for Windows, and not Visual Studio Express for Windows Desktop.

To get started you’ll need to have a couple of additional pieces of software installed. These will allow you to download and configure the OGRE source tree for compilation. Use the links below to download and install the additional software.

Test Your Builds

Now that you have gone through all this effort, lets make sure that the Samples run correctly. If you have the Windows 8.1 solution still open, tab over to it, otherwise open it back up again. What? You thought we were done?

In the Solution Explorer tool window, find the SampleBrowser, it should be at the bottom, Right-Click it and select Set as Startup Project. You should now be able to run the samples by clicking the button.

Follow the same steps above for the Windows Phone solution. The samples will run in the Windows Phone emulator.

Creating a Universal Test Application

What a long trek! I hope you haven't given up yet, we are nearing the end, and at last we are at a point where we can begin to use the Universal App templates in Visual Studio 2013.

The first step is to open a new instance of Visual Studio 2013. Then create a new project based on the DirectX Windows Store App project template....

...

Build & Run

Make sure you made the changes correctly, build the project, you can now run the app and bask in the glory that is OGRE!

Wrapping it up

In this article we accomplished the goal of getting a sample application configured to use the OGRE library to render a model on the screen in a Universal Windows Store App. To accomplish this amazing feat we had to first compile the OGRE dependencies, then compile OGRE itself. Finally we created an App to display the OGRE Head model.

]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/ORGE-you-ready-to-create-Universal-projectsMichael H.C. Cummings is back with an outstanding getting started guide on creating Universal apps/games with OGRE. He walks you through every step, from getting the OGRE source, building it, creating the Universal projects to the final build and run... Here's a couple times we've previously highlighted OGRE; OGRE you ready to build Windows 8.1 games?There's an Ogre in my Metro...Getting Started Guide using OGRE 3D and Universal ProjectsOGRE (Object-Oriented Graphics Rendering Engine) is a scene-oriented, flexible 3D engine written in C&#43;&#43; designed to make it easier and more intuitive for developers to produce applications utilizing hardware-accelerated 3D graphics. The class library abstracts all the details of using the underlying system libraries like Direct3D and OpenGL and provides an interface based on world objects and other intuitive classes. In recent releases, OGRE has added support for Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1. Since the support is fairly new, getting OGRE ready for building games for these platforms can be a little tricksy, this guide is intended to reduce the friction of getting a game started using OGRE. By following this guide, which is very similar to another post I did on OGRE, you will be able to start building your next game targeting Windows and Windows Phone 8.1 devices. The best method for using OGRE is to build it from source and then build your projects on top of that build. A primary benefit of compiling from source is that you can keep updated with the latest bug fixes. This also allows you to step into the OGRE source while debugging, if you need to, in order to solve the trickier rendering problems. Getting ReadyAs this guide is targeting Windows and Windows Phone 8.1, you’ll need to have a working installation of Windows 8.1 and Visual Studio 2013. If you are using the Express editions of Visual Studio, make sure you are using the Visual Studio Express for Windows, and not Visual Studio Express for Windows Desktop. To gethttps://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/ORGE-you-ready-to-create-Universal-projects
Wed, 19 Nov 2014 14:00:00 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/ORGE-you-ready-to-create-Universal-projectsGreg DuncanGreg Duncan2https://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/ORGE-you-ready-to-create-Universal-projects/RSSC++Visual StudioGame DevelopmentTwo for Kinect 4 Windows v2 and Unity 3DPeter Daukintis, Microsoft Technical Evangelist, who we've recently highlighted, Kinect for Windows v2 Face Tracking Managed and Native and Saluting the Visual Gesture Builder - Details and example code, returns today with two Unity 3D related posts, a subject that I've seen a great deal of interest and discussion.

So, I stumbled around a bit on the next step as initially I tried opening the KinectView scene from it’s existing location and this doesn’t seem to work very well. The result I got was that when I examined the game objects there was an error on each of the scripts. After some head-scratching I watched the video here http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Programming-Kinect-for-Windows-v2/04 and at about 10:54 the presenter shows copying the scene locally to the current project. That fixed the issue for me so I was back up and running. You can plug in your Kinect sensor and run the game and then explore the scripts to see how the data is retrieved from the sensor and applied to GameObjects in your scene.

...

My idea was to create a very simple Kinect sample which will move particle systems around following the positions of the users hands. So lets step through what I did.

First, I chose File > New Project to bring up the Unity project wizard:

...

The next step was to add two new GameObjects, one for each hand and set their joint types to HandLeft and HandRight and then add particle system’s to each as a child. Then the particle systems had their parameters tweaked until they looked how I wanted. It seems to me that the combination of Unity and Kinect is a pretty powerful one and I’m looking forward to seeing the results in the Windows Store.

Following on from my previous post where I showed how easy it is to interact with Kinect data inside the unity 3D environment I wondered how I might manipulate 3D game objects using Kinect gestures within a Windows store app. (Before I begin I would like to point out that the Kinect integration is only available with Unity Pro version). Also, if you want to follow along you will need to get the Kinect Unity packages and also the Unity Visual Studio Tools. These packages can be added from the Unity Project wizard or can be later added using the Assets > Import Package menu.

I wanted to start by leveraging the built-in gestures that the Kinect SDK uses in its Controls Basics samples. There are samples in the Kinect v2 SDK for each of WPF, XAML and DX; the gesture support has been integrated into the ui frameworks for WPF and XAML but the Direct X sample is more low-level and shows how to use gesture recognizers directly.

I decided to leverage the Unity to XAML communication which is outlined in the Unity sample here http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/windowsstore-examples.html and use the higher level gesture support in XAML. In case you were wondering when you create a Windows store app for Unity it is created as either a c# XAML + Direct X app or a c++ XAML Direct X app. What this means is a standard XAML app which has a SwapChainPanel which hosts the Unity content. The SwapChainPanel is a control which can sit anywhere in a the visual tree and can render Direct X graphics.

Setting the Scene

I started by looking through the Unity Assets store for a suitable 3D model and while browsing through the catalogue I found this free 3D earth model:

...

So, I imported this and added it to my scene in Unity. Now, I’m a beginner with Unity so at this point I wanted to get a better feel for how to interact with GameObjects in a scene, how this all translates back down to a Windows Store and Windows Phone app and also how to debug using Visual Studio.

Mouse/Camera

I thought that a basic scenario would be adding the ability to orbit the camera around the 3D model and then later I could think about how to achieve this using kinect gestures. To that end I added the standard Unity MouseOrbit script to the MainCamera in my scene and selected my earth model as the ‘look-at’ target. So, so far I’ve just pressed on a few buttons and I have a camera orbiting a 3D earth; let’s see if it runs as a Windows Store app.

Windows Store

To run/debug a windows store app from this Unity scene you can select File > Build Settings and you will see the dialog below:

...

I set some of the settings, added the scene here and chose ‘Build’. I chose a folder to store the project files and Unity created me a VS solution with my store app code. I opened this up in VS and one thing you will need to do before running the app is to choose a processor architecture as ‘Any CPU’ is not sufficient. I usually choose x86 while developing as the VS designer won’t work with x64. So with that selected you can hit F5 and the app will run. So at this stage I had an earth which I could orbit around with the camera. I also tweaked the mouse orbit script a little to provide a zoom in/out as I would want this functionality later when I use Kinect.

From Mouse to Kinect

So for the XAML side of things what I needed was a way to recognise gestures and pass that information through to the Unity Scene. The way to detect built-in gestures using XAML is to add a KinectRegion to the visual tree which will detect IKinectControl derived controls within it and along with a little more plumbing you can code a class which receives manipulation events corresponding to gestures. Here are the steps and the basic code I used to get to this stage:

Create an IKinectControl-derived Usercontrol that I could use inside a KinectRegion which would cover the whole screen.

...

An alternative to this would be to implement directly in the Unity environment using the KinectGestureRecognizer which I suspect would be better from a perf perspective. The sample code for this project can be downloaded here (please note that some paths appear to be hard-coded in the generated Unity script projects so this will prevent the solution from building without a bit of tweaking).

]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/kinect/Two-for-Kinect-4-Windows-v2-and-Unity-3DPeter Daukintis, Microsoft Technical Evangelist, who we've recently highlighted, Kinect for Windows v2 Face Tracking Managed and Native and Saluting the Visual Gesture Builder - Details and example code, returns today with two Unity 3D related posts, a subject that I've seen a great deal of interest and discussion. Kinect 4 Windows V2 – Unity 3DAfter installing the Kinect v2 SDK from here http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=44561 you can also download the supporting Unity 3D plugins here http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=513177. Note that the plugins require Unity 3D Pro and they expose APIs for Kinect for Windows core functionality, visual gesture builder and face to Unity apps. The zip file containing the Unity packages also contains two sample scenes Green Screen and Kinect View. Lets take a look at KinectView first: So, I stumbled around a bit on the next step as initially I tried opening the KinectView scene from it’s existing location and this doesn’t seem to work very well. The result I got was that when I examined the game objects there was an error on each of the scripts. After some head-scratching I watched the video here http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Programming-Kinect-for-Windows-v2/04 and at about 10:54 the presenter shows copying the scene locally to the current project. That fixed the issue for me so I was back up and running. You can plug in your Kinect sensor and run the game and then explore the scripts to see how the data is retrieved from the sensor and applied to GameObjects in your scene. ... My idea was to create a very simple Kinect sample which will move particle systems around following the positions of the users hands. So lets step through what I did. First, I chose File &gt; New Project to bring up the Unity project wizard: ... The next step was to add two new GameObjects, one for each hand and set their joint types to HandLeft and HandRight and then add particle system’s to each as a child. Then the particle shttps://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/kinect/Two-for-Kinect-4-Windows-v2-and-Unity-3D
Tue, 11 Nov 2014 14:00:00 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/kinect/Two-for-Kinect-4-Windows-v2-and-Unity-3DGreg DuncanGreg Duncan0https://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/kinect/Two-for-Kinect-4-Windows-v2-and-Unity-3D/RSSCoding4FunKinectUnityGame DevelopmentMVA Monthly: November 2014 PreviewJerry Nixon and Colin Lyth are back and in this installment of our MVA Monthly series they discuss what’s new and upcoming for the month of November.

A pick-your-path quest inspired by ‘Project Spark’

After a six-month beta, Project Spark (ESRB- E10+) has now launched with a host of new content and a retail disc offering. More than 1 milion Project Spark creators have already logged 4 million hours making 70,000 game levels that fans can dive into on day one. New content comes online every day so there’s is always fresh content to check out regardless of your genre preference or skill level.

Project Spark is an experience like no other that aims to democratize game making by giving everyone easy-to-use tools to create, play and share their own creations with others. You can instantly play tens of thousands of user-made games, remix a pre-made game, or hop right in and make your own game with tools including 3D sculpting and a visual programming language similar to what the pros use, made accessible to all.

Project Spark is free-to-play and is available for download now via the Xbox One and Windows 8.1 stores. Add-on content can be unlocked by using in-game credits earned during play, or by purchasing tokens to buy add-ons immediately. Fans will see a host of new content available on launch day including sci-fi skin, adventure mode, champion features, creation enhancements, and multiplayer mode to inspire all new gameplay.

Have you heard about Project Spark? It's the ultimate interactive digital playground for gamers of all ages, a powerful (yet simple) way to build and play your own worlds, stories, and games. Share all of your creations to a dynamic community, and play what the community makes. Project Spark brings creation to life and presents endless opportunities for play.

In this course, expert Stephen Howell explores registering a Microsoft account and installing Project Spark from the Windows Store, playing your first adventure with Crossroads, learning to control character behavior with Kode, and publishing your worlds.

Creating Games with Project Spark: (01) The Project Spark Website

Creating Games with Project Spark: (02) Your First Adventure (Crossroads)

Creating Games with Project Spark: (03) Using the Tutorials

Creating Games with Project Spark: (04) Digging Deeper on Worlds and Characters

]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/Sparking-your-game-development-muse-with-Project-SparkProject Spark has finally shipped and is now ready for every aspiring game developer. All you need is an XBox One or Windows 8.1 and you, or your game-dev-to-be, can start building games. No development experience needed, no major investment, just you, yr imagination and your spark... Today we introduce Project Spark and more importantly share a free Microsoft Virtual Academy course from Stephen Howell on how to get started creating games with it... Project Spark launches for Windows 8.1 and Xbox OneBack in February, I had published a blog post that takes a look at Project Spark as it first entered beta for Windows 8.1. Project Spark is an amazing and fun experience that aims to democratize game making by giving everyone easy-to-use tools to create, play and share their own creations with others. Anyone can build their own game and let the community play their game! It’s really fun. Project Spark is officially launching today and available for download right now from the Windows Store for devices running Windows 8.1 and for the Xbox One. ... For an in-depth look at Project Spark, I highly recommend checking out this story. The Keys to the KingdomA pick-your-path quest inspired by ‘Project Spark’by Jennifer Warnick What will You Create? Project Spark Launches Online and at Retail After a six-month beta, Project Spark (ESRB- E10&#43;) has now launched with a host of new content and a retail disc offering. More than 1 milion Project Spark creators have already logged 4 million hours making 70,000 game levels that fans can dive into on day one. New content comes online every day so there’s is always fresh content to check out regardless of your genre preference or skill level. Project Spark is an experience like no other that aims to democratize game making by giving everyone easy-to-use tools to create, play and share their own creations with others. You can instantly play tens of thousands of user-made games, remix a pre-made game, or hop right in and make your ownhttps://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/Sparking-your-game-development-muse-with-Project-Spark
Wed, 22 Oct 2014 13:00:00 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/Sparking-your-game-development-muse-with-Project-SparkGreg DuncanGreg Duncan1https://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/Sparking-your-game-development-muse-with-Project-Spark/RSSCoding4FunDevelopmentGame DevelopmentOMNI Engine v1 Released (C# in T3D) - Think new Game Framework for C#'ersAbout a year and a half ago we highlighted Torque 3D, Torque once, twice, three... with the MIT Licensed Torque2D and Torque3D engines. Now they have released a new framework, one that will open up opportunities for many more developers. What if there was a great game framework where instead of having to learn C++, you could use C#? It was open source? and has a very friendly license model.

Has it really been four years since I started down the path of building a C# interface for T3D? I do not think I can even recall how many different approaches I have taken over the years. Oh woe's is me, all those epic fails along the way. But, I have proved that if you stick with something that seems impossible, you will prevail.

Folks, I would like to present you with the new Omni Game Engine. Yes of course it is based off of T3D, build 3.5.1 to be exact. (Yes I plan to merge in 3.61 soon). I am sure you are wondering why I feel this is a major accomplishment, well let me explain.

The core of the Omni Game Engine is the Omni Framework. The Omni Framework is a C# model that simplifies game programming in T3D. There is no ugly p-Invoke syntaxs, convoluted work a-rounds, or half-baked solutions here. The Omni Framework is a complete end-to-end solution for programming in C# inside of T3D.

Included with the C# Omni Framework are also many improvements to the C++. We have been pouring over the many resources available on the GG site and cherry picked the most useful and used. We figured that if the first thing people do when they get T3D is implement these same resources, why not just put them into our head?

...

One other thing which is extremely important, our team has spent countless hours documenting the Omni Framework and how it works. The currently 125 page document covers everything from setting up your first project to how the internals of the Omni Framework works. I highly recommend that people read the manual before using the Omni Engine, since there are vital steps covered in the document.

You must notify us if you release a game. (This is so we can set up banners on the site and such.)

If you have an about box, it must display the text "OMNI by Winterleaf Entertainment"

For the Omni Supporter License,Well you do not have to do anything. All of the above restrictions are removed.I still recommend you visit our site here to read the full licenses.

So, I know you are thinking how much does all of this cost, is it a bazillion dollars?

The Community License is free to everyone. You get full source code and all our tools for FREE. Yep you all heard it here, FREE.

If you want to help support the development of the OMNI engine, you can buy a Supporter license for 100 bucks which among other things will get you a discount in our store and consulting, besides removing the splash and stuff requirements.

The most important feature of the OMNI Framework is of course it is all written in C#. No longer are you forced to learn some other language to build a game. Along with bringing a very popular language into the game development arena, it also brings the all of the Microsoft .Net libraries along with it.

No longer do you need to struggle with C++ to do simple things like database interaction. Any third party SDK/API which provides a Microsoft .Net library can be included in your game/simulation.

The OMNI Framework also provides a feature rich and abstracted way to program game scripts in C#. We kept the Model/View/Controller (MVC) paradigm in mind when we built the OMNI Framework. Leveraging the MVC design principle allows the OMNI Framework to achieve things that just aren’t possible in TorqueScript.

These many concepts and features elevate the OMNI Engine to the likes of the Unity game engine. Best of all, the source code is open to the public and free to use for all your game development adventures.

LiveScripts!™

LiveScripts!™ is a new part of the Omni Framework which allows editing C# files while the engine is running. It also allows the programmer to extend a base object just like writing a class extension in C#. No longer do you need to restart the engine every time you tweak a C# class or function due to an error or bad logic.

The Omni T3D Engine is a derived engine based off of the MIT Open source T3D project from Garagegames.com.

Why should I use your engine instead of T3D?

This is true, you can download the T3D engine for free from Github and build your game. But there are many differences between Omni and stock T3D.

C# integration

Implementation of common resource

Refactor Math

Most importantly you get support from people who work with the engine daily and are constantly pushing the boundaries of the engine’s capabilities.

How different is Omni from T3D?

Omni is a branch version of T3D. Just like RedHat and Ubuntu are branches of Linux, Omni is a branch of T3D. Omni can run a TorqueScript game, and run it quite fine but of course it’s designed to run optimally in C#.

A knowledge of the MIT T3D project won’t hurt you when it comes to Omni. Mechanics are mechanics and for the most part they are the same. The biggest difference is in the syntax and object oriented design of the script code structure.

There are some differences in the way you do things between Omni and MIT T3D, some of the more noted ones include threading, file dialog boxes, and just in time script compilation. Another big difference between Omni and MIT T3D is in inheritance. MIT T3D’s scripting interface only allows a very limited form of inheritance of objects. Omni on the other hand allows programmers to inherit to any depth and create rich object oriented design using C# inheritance.

Can I build a MMO/MMOFPS/MMORTS/MMOOMG with OMNI?

Can you? Yes you can. One of the biggest problems with the MIT T3D code base is that simple things like database interaction has to be added to the engine per build. Want to add “Some Library for communication”, you need to find the C++ code base and shoehorn it into the T3D C++ engine.

With Omni, adding database support is as simple as including a reference to the C# project. If you can find a Microsoft.Net DLL to do what you want you can roll it into Omni with ease. You can extend Omni to do things that would just take months in MIT T3D.

Imagine building a simulator that shows the layout of your house, and if you click a door you want to unlock the door remotely. Doing this in MIT T3D would be painful at best, but with Omni, you just include the Microsoft.Net DLL and go on your merry way.

Speaking of doc's, here, if you're looking for a quick (well it is 125 pages, so quick'ish) look at getting started and what you can do, check out the doc's. My themselves, they will get you fired up and wanted to kick off your game dev...

]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/OMNI-Engine-v1-Released-C-in-T3D-Think-new-Game-Framework-for-C-ersAbout a year and a half ago we highlighted Torque 3D, Torque once, twice, three... with the MIT Licensed Torque2D and Torque3D engines. Now they have released a new framework, one that will open up opportunities for many more developers. What if there was a great game framework where instead of having to learn C&#43;&#43;, you could use C#? It was open source? and has a very friendly license model. Let me introduce you to... The OMNI Engine v1 Released (C# in T3D)Check out the website at www.omniengine.net Has it really been four years since I started down the path of building a C# interface for T3D? I do not think I can even recall how many different approaches I have taken over the years. Oh woe's is me, all those epic fails along the way. But, I have proved that if you stick with something that seems impossible, you will prevail. Folks, I would like to present you with the new Omni Game Engine. Yes of course it is based off of T3D, build 3.5.1 to be exact. (Yes I plan to merge in 3.61 soon). I am sure you are wondering why I feel this is a major accomplishment, well let me explain. The core of the Omni Game Engine is the Omni Framework. The Omni Framework is a C# model that simplifies game programming in T3D. There is no ugly p-Invoke syntaxs, convoluted work a-rounds, or half-baked solutions here. The Omni Framework is a complete end-to-end solution for programming in C# inside of T3D. Included with the C# Omni Framework are also many improvements to the C&#43;&#43;. We have been pouring over the many resources available on the GG site and cherry picked the most useful and used. We figured that if the first thing people do when they get T3D is implement these same resources, why not just put them into our head? ... One other thing which is extremely important, our team has spent countless hours documenting the Omni Framework and how it works. The currently 125 page document covers everything from setting up your first project to how the internals of the Omni Frahttps://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/OMNI-Engine-v1-Released-C-in-T3D-Think-new-Game-Framework-for-C-ers
Wed, 15 Oct 2014 13:00:00 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/OMNI-Engine-v1-Released-C-in-T3D-Think-new-Game-Framework-for-C-ersGreg DuncanGreg Duncan0https://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/OMNI-Engine-v1-Released-C-in-T3D-Think-new-Game-Framework-for-C-ers/RSSC#Coding4FunGame DevelopmentMicrosoft DevRadio: MVA Monthly - October 2014 PreviewJerry Nixon welcomes Colin Lyth to the show as they discuss what’s new and upcoming in the world of the Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) for the month of October.

]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/DevRadio/Microsoft-DevRadio-MVA-Monthly-October-2014-PreviewJerry Nixon welcomes Colin Lyth to the show as they discuss what’s new and upcoming in the world of the Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) for the month of October. [0:42] What is the Microsoft Virtual Academy?[2:39] What can developers expect to see in October? Lighting Up Real-Time Web Communications with SignalRBuilding Responsive UI with BootstrapSingle Page Applications with jQuery or AngularJSDeveloping Games with Construct 2Developing 2D Games with HTML5WebGL 3D Game Development with Babylon.jsIntroduction to Programming with Python[9:15] Where should people go to get started with the MVA? Follow the conversation @msdev Become a Fan @ facebook.com/MSFTDev Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes, Windows Phone Marketplace or RSS If you're interested in learning more about the products or solutions discussed in this episode, click on any of the below links for free, in-depth information: Websites &amp; Blogs: Jerry Nixon's Blog 772https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/DevRadio/Microsoft-DevRadio-MVA-Monthly-October-2014-Preview
Fri, 03 Oct 2014 12:35:09 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/DevRadio/Microsoft-DevRadio-MVA-Monthly-October-2014-PreviewJerry Nixon, DevRadio, ChrisCaldwellJerry Nixon, DevRadio, ChrisCaldwell1https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/DevRadio/Microsoft-DevRadio-MVA-Monthly-October-2014-Preview/RSS3DCasual-GamesHTML5PythonTrainingGame DevelopmentWindows 8WindowsContentWindows 8.12C24U (Two Construct 2 posts for you)It's been a while since we've highlighted Construct 2, the cross platform game maker, Jump into HTML game dev with the free Construct 2, so when I saw today's items I had to get them out to you as soon as I could...

Today we've got a great series from MVA that will jump start your Construct 2 effort and we close with a super list of free Construct 2 game templates.

Are you interested in becoming a game creator? Want to make the next Flappy Bird? Look no further than Construct 2, a cross-platform HTML5 game creator designed specifically for 2D games. It supports multiple platform exports, including free export to Windows Phone and Windows 8.

Join experts James Quick and Shahed Chowdhuri for this engaging session. Learn to build a fun and engaging 2D game in just an hour, with no previous experience, using the popular "drag-and-drop" tool. Watch exciting step-by step demos, and see how easy it is to set up Construct 2, build games, and publish to the Microsoft platform. You can even get blog posts and video links to supplement your learning. Don't miss this chance to get started creating games!

Hello guys, I have been creating several game templates that should help you to get a faster and polished products, or help you to learn Construct 2 much faster.

In the following weeks I should find some time to polish these templates and get them all up to date. You will notice that some are more polished in their behaviors and graphics. Also, to get them ready for Github I should make certain that I have translated all comments and should create a nice description of the project.

In any case, I hope you enjoy the templates, many more should be available soon.

• Roguelike Alienhttp://bit.ly/myrogueTop down adventure with randomly generated scenarios. Virtual thumbstick for touch controlled devices. Keyboard support. Polished art from @KenneyWings. Shadow management for Mobs. Full game already published in the store: http://bit.ly/roguealien

• Doodle BombsPlatformer with my own kind of twist. Perfect to explain the bullet behavior.

• Falling XmasXmas themed platformer.

• Flappy In the StormRiding the Flappy Bird wave. Using a C2 template I polished and completed a full game.

• Pumpkin EscapeMy take on Doodle Jump. Infinite jumper with a few twists like falling zombies.

• Santa Vs ZombiesMy kind of Xmas. Infinite Runner.

• S G RunnerOne of my first infinite runners. Not the best, but simple to modify.

• S G StormCopter like game.

• Super GMy first Infinite Jumper. It has inclinometer support.

• Tainted Love(Yes, I do like to created stupid links that put weird ideas in your head. I have issues, I know :)Valentine’s themed platformer.

• Super G InvadersNot the best graphics, but it was my take on Space Invaders.

You may see that some games are incredibly much more polished than others, and that is because I was learning about C2 at the same time I was publishing the games. So, you should be able to find games for all tastes and expertise levels.

]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/2C24U-Two-Construct-2-posts-for-you-It's been a while since we've highlighted Construct 2, the cross platform game maker, Jump into HTML game dev with the free Construct 2, so when I saw today's items I had to get them out to you as soon as I could... Today we've got a great series from MVA that will jump start your Construct 2 effort and we close with a super list of free Construct 2 game templates. Developing Games with Construct 2Are you interested in becoming a game creator? Want to make the next Flappy Bird? Look no further than Construct 2, a cross-platform HTML5 game creator designed specifically for 2D games. It supports multiple platform exports, including free export to Windows Phone and Windows 8. Join experts James Quick and Shahed Chowdhuri for this engaging session. Learn to build a fun and engaging 2D game in just an hour, with no previous experience, using the popular &quot;drag-and-drop&quot; tool. Watch exciting step-by step demos, and see how easy it is to set up Construct 2, build games, and publish to the Microsoft platform. You can even get blog posts and video links to supplement your learning. Don't miss this chance to get started creating games! FREE Game Templates in Construct 2Hello guys, I have been creating several game templates that should help you to get a faster and polished products, or help you to learn Construct 2 much faster. In the following weeks I should find some time to polish these templates and get them all up to date. You will notice that some are more polished in their behaviors and graphics. Also, to get them ready for Github I should make certain that I have translated all comments and should create a nice description of the project. In any case, I hope you enjoy the templates, many more should be available soon. • Roguelike Alienhttp://bit.ly/myrogueTop down adventure with randomly generated scenarios. Virtual thumbstick for touch controlled devices. Keyboard support. Polished art from @KenneyWings. Shadow management for Mobs. Full game already publishhttps://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/2C24U-Two-Construct-2-posts-for-you-
Wed, 01 Oct 2014 13:00:00 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/2C24U-Two-Construct-2-posts-for-you-Greg DuncanGreg Duncan0https://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/2C24U-Two-Construct-2-posts-for-you-/RSSCoding4FunGame Development Zoo Tycoons FriendsThis year at the Unite 2014 conference in Seattle, we caught up with Matthew Roberts, Lead Producer at Microsoft Studios who is working on Zoo Tycoon Friends, a new mobile tablet game. Matthew shared some of the great code reuse benefits they get out of using Unity; beyond the usual cross-platform targeting, Zoo Tycoon reuses the C# business logic for client and server-side state validation of the game on Azure.

The game is not out, but look for it soon on Windows Store and Windows Phone store. ]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Zoo-Tycoons-FriendsThis year at the Unite 2014 conference in Seattle, we caught up with Matthew Roberts, Lead Producer at Microsoft Studios who is working on Zoo Tycoon Friends, a new mobile tablet game. Matthew shared some of the great code reuse benefits they get out of using Unity; beyond the usual cross-platform targeting, Zoo Tycoon reuses the C# business logic for client and server-side state validation of the game on Azure. The game is not out, but look for it soon on Windows Store and Windows Phone store. 381https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Zoo-Tycoons-Friends
Sat, 27 Sep 2014 00:41:57 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Zoo-Tycoons-FriendsJaime Rodriguez, GolnazJaime Rodriguez, Golnaz0https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Zoo-Tycoons-Friends/RSSUnityGame DevelopmentIt's a Unity Game Dev Twofer dayToday I've got a Game Dev with Unity twofer for you...

First a Microsoft Virtual Academy on-demand series recorded from a recent live event and then a Unity powered tower defense game tutorial (with source) from Dimitris-Ilias Gkanatsios. Between the two of these you should get a nice Unity jump start indeed.

Whether you're a beginner or an established indie game developer, if you want to ramp up your skills, join the always-entertaining Adam Tuliper (of DinoBurger fame) and a team of industry experts for this informative Jump Start. They take you on an awesome journey using Unity, one of the most popular game development tools available.

Learn how to develop Unity Games for Windows using C# and Unity, and see why Unity is the tool of choice for millions of game developers around the world. Explore the interface, 2D and 3D game development, publishing for Windows, and monetizing your games. Find out how Unity helps you animate events, use environmental controls, add finishing touches for a more polished game, and more. Don't miss it!

Unless you’ve been living in a cave in the recent years, you surely must have played a Tower Defense style game. Be it Plants vs Zombies, Kingdom Rush, geoDefense, Jelly Defense or any other, I’m sure you’ve spent much quality time setting up your defenses, killing enemies and advancing stages. So, since it’s one of the most common game types you can find on the application stores out there, I decided to try my luck and create one from scratch, using Unity3D and present it in this tutorial. Since it’s a bit bigger compared to my previous efforts, it will be split in two parts. In this first post, we’ll describe the game, the level editor, the respective XML creation and parsing and the object pool used in the game to increase performance. Check the screenshot below to get a taste of how the game looks like, running on the Unity editor.

Scenario and gameplay are both pretty basic, actually. Badgers are attacking user’s bunny house and she has her Chuck Norris trained bunnies to protect it, by shooting arrows. In order to be able to create more protector bunnies, user needs carrot money. If user kills all the badgers after the predetermined number of rounds, she wins. If enough badgers get into the bunny house, user loses! Badgers follow a path in order to approach the house upon which protector bunnies cannot be placed.

Let’s dive a bit deeper into the game mechanics and gameplay.

- Bunny House: Initial life is 10, each badger that arrives If 10 badgers arrive at the house, game is over.

- Path: The path that the badgers will walk on in order to arrive at the house. Specific waypoints will designate their direction.

- Badger: Our enemy. It has a speed property and a health component, which is decreased when it is hit by an arrow. It follows waypoints (non-visible gameobjects) that are placed on the path pieces.

- Bunny: Our defense. It can shoot arrows at a constant fire rate. It starts its activity by looking for an enemy at a close vicinity. If it finds one, it starts shooting. If the enemy dies or leaves the vicinity, it searches for another enemy. Has a standard carrot cost to create.

- Carrot: Falling randomly from the top of the screen. User needs to tap/click on them in order to increase money, to create more bunnies.

- BunnyGenerator: (yeah, I could have come up with a better name) It’s the bunny on the lower left part of the screen. User needs to drag it in order to create new bunnies. On areas that a new bunny cannot be created (such as on the path), it will highlight them as red. Upon a new bunny creation, a standard amount of money will be taken of the user’s account.

- Level Generator: All game levels are to be stored in an XML file that uses a standard format. The Unity developer has the option to use a custom made Unity editor that saves the file from the scene editor to an XML file.

We also have a couple of “roles” that will be mentioned in this tutorial

- Unity developer: The one that will use our custom editor to create new levels for the game

This is the second post in 2 post tutorial regarding making a tower defense in Unity. In the first post we described the game scenario and gameplay and we also mentioned the level editor, the XML file and structure that holds level information and the object pooler methodology we use. Again, if you haven’t read it, I strongly encourage you to do it ASAP, this post will be much clearer after that!

]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/Its-a-Unity-Game-Dev-Twofer-dayToday I've got a Game Dev with Unity twofer for you... First a Microsoft Virtual Academy on-demand series recorded from a recent live event and then a Unity powered tower defense game tutorial (with source) from Dimitris-Ilias Gkanatsios. Between the two of these you should get a nice Unity jump start indeed. Developing 2D &amp; 3D Games with Unity for Windows Whether you're a beginner or an established indie game developer, if you want to ramp up your skills, join the always-entertaining Adam Tuliper (of DinoBurger fame) and a team of industry experts for this informative Jump Start. They take you on an awesome journey using Unity, one of the most popular game development tools available. Learn how to develop Unity Games for Windows using C# and Unity, and see why Unity is the tool of choice for millions of game developers around the world. Explore the interface, 2D and 3D game development, publishing for Windows, and monetizing your games. Find out how Unity helps you animate events, use environmental controls, add finishing touches for a more polished game, and more. Don't miss it! Full course outline: Mod 01: Intro &amp; ArchitectureMod 02: 2D Game DevelopmentMod 03: 2D &amp; 3D Asset CreationMod 04: 3D Game DevelopmentMod 05: Building for the Windows PlatformMod 06: Optimizing Your GamesMod 07: Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) in UnityMod 08: Marketing and MonetizationMod 09: Prime[31] and Azure Mobile ServicesMod 10: Adding the Finishing TouchesMVA URL: http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/training-courses/developing-2d-3d-games-with-unity-for-windows-jump-start Now that you've been through that, here's a tutorial that will walk you building a tower defense game... A Tower Defense game in Unity Part 1, Part 2If you’re in a hurry, you can find the complete source code on GitHub: https://github.com/dgkanatsios/TowerDefense... Unless you’ve been living in a cave in the recent years, you surely must have played a Tower Defense style game. Be it Plants vs Zhttps://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/Its-a-Unity-Game-Dev-Twofer-day
Wed, 24 Sep 2014 13:00:00 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/Its-a-Unity-Game-Dev-Twofer-dayGreg DuncanGreg Duncan1https://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/Its-a-Unity-Game-Dev-Twofer-day/RSSCoding4FunUnityGame DevelopmentMicrosoft DevRadio: MVA Live Event - Developing Games with Construct 2 Jerry Nixon welcomes Shahed Chowdhuri and James Quick to the show as they discuss their upcoming Microsoft Virtual Academy event – “Developing Games with Construct 2” on Thursday September 25th. If you’re interested in game development but don’t know how to get started, this event is for you!

]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/DevRadio/Microsoft-DevRadio-MVA-Live-Event-Developing-Games-with-Construct-2Jerry Nixon welcomes Shahed Chowdhuri and James Quick to the show as they discuss their upcoming Microsoft Virtual Academy event – “Developing Games with Construct 2” on Thursday September 25th. If you’re interested in game development but don’t know how to get started, this event is for you! [0:48] What is Construct 2?[1:32] Who should attend this event?[2:32] Who makes Construct 2? [3:40] What kind of opportunity is available for developers that are interested in making a game? Follow the conversation @msdev Become a Fan @ facebook.com/MSFTDev Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes, Windows Phone Marketplace or RSS If you're interested in learning more about the products or solutions discussed in this episode, click on any of the below links for free, in-depth information: Websites &amp; Blogs: Jerry Nixon's BlogShahed Chowdhuri’s BlogJames Quick’s Blog 290https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/DevRadio/Microsoft-DevRadio-MVA-Live-Event-Developing-Games-with-Construct-2
Sat, 20 Sep 2014 00:10:40 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/DevRadio/Microsoft-DevRadio-MVA-Live-Event-Developing-Games-with-Construct-2Jerry Nixon, DevRadio, ChrisCaldwellJerry Nixon, DevRadio, ChrisCaldwell2https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/DevRadio/Microsoft-DevRadio-MVA-Live-Event-Developing-Games-with-Construct-2/RSSAndroidCasual-GamesGamesGamingWindows PhoneGame DevelopmentGames for WindowsiOSWindows 8Windows Phone 8WindowsContentWindows 8.1Dominik Boesl from AntMe!Today we are kicking things off with a short interview with Dominik Boesl from the AntMe! Team.

AntMe! is a free-to-use, exciting serious game that helps learners to playfully and effortlessly learn the essentials of object oriented programming. By commanding your own colony of ants using C# or VB you help your ants to master many thrilling challenges: collecting sugar and apples, defending the ant hive or outnumbering the ants' natural enemies - the bugs!

All started in 2007, when Tom and Wolfgang invented the game. Since then AntMe! has come a long way and is with its more than 2.5 million downloads one of the worlds most educational games. Together with Dominik (who is responsible for the scientific and educational work) and Patric, the four guys drive the project in their spare time.

AntMe! 2.0 is currently in development and will bring a lot of new features (like a story mode), new levels and additional programming paradigms. Oh yeah, global expansion is also on the docket. To fund the development, the AntMe! team is running a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo.

If you want to find out more about AntMe!, support the team or just get in touch with the four guys from the anthill, check out www.antme.net - because: The ANT is near!

]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Dominik-Boesl-from-AntMe-Today we are kicking things off with a short interview with Dominik Boesl from the AntMe! Team. AntMe! is a free-to-use, exciting serious game that helps learners to playfully and effortlessly learn the essentials of object oriented programming. By commanding your own colony of ants using C# or VB you help your ants to master many thrilling challenges: collecting sugar and apples, defending the ant hive or outnumbering the ants' natural enemies - the bugs! All started in 2007, when Tom and Wolfgang invented the game. Since then AntMe! has come a long way and is with its more than 2.5 million downloads one of the worlds most educational games. Together with Dominik (who is responsible for the scientific and educational work) and Patric, the four guys drive the project in their spare time. AntMe! 2.0 is currently in development and will bring a lot of new features (like a story mode), new levels and additional programming paradigms. Oh yeah, global expansion is also on the docket. To fund the development, the AntMe! team is running a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. If you want to find out more about AntMe!, support the team or just get in touch with the four guys from the anthill, check out www.antme.net - because: The ANT is near! 289https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Dominik-Boesl-from-AntMe-
Tue, 16 Sep 2014 00:38:17 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Dominik-Boesl-from-AntMe-Achim Dettweiler, Achim DettweilerAchim Dettweiler, Achim Dettweiler2https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/The-Game-Blog/Dominik-Boesl-from-AntMe-/RSSGame Development